


Little Dove

by emma98



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy has healing powers gifted to her by the spirit of a mythical creature when she was born, Darcyland Secret Santa 2016, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Mythology - Freeform, Some sadness, but mostly just gentle low level fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9057469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emma98/pseuds/emma98
Summary: Shortly after Darcy Lewis was born, she was marked with the likeness of a stout white dove, the spirit of the Caladrius, which had not been seen on Earth for centuries.  It gives her a gift, the ability to heal other people, to draw out their illness.
There is a catch though, she has to stick kind of close when the damage is a little more than a bump on the head.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CinnaAtHeart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnaAtHeart/gifts).



> Hi everyone! 
> 
> Merry Christmas! This work is for cinnaatheart, who is an awesome lady and who gave the best prompts for the DarcyLand Secret Santa this year. I was super excited to work on a second project here, and I really hope that she enjoys what she inspired!

**Little Dove**

* * *

  
  


The Caladrius, a mythical creature that usually took the shape of a bird, had been missing on Earth for centuries, but was reborn on September 12th, 1989 during a vicious hurricane that had stranded her mother in a car, washed away by roaring rainwater and mud.  Under normal circumstances, the baby would have, of course, been born in a hospital, and her single mother would have taken her home to their one bedroom apartment and it would have been a lovely little life full of not very many luxuries, but so much love that living paycheck to paycheck wouldn’t have mattered in the end.

 

Sadly, that wasn’t meant to be.  

 

Instead, the harsh winds and unforgiving rain made the car run off the road, and her mother fought through eight full hours of pain, until finally, in the calm stillness at the eye of the storm, the baby blinked her eyes open and stared up at a weak and wounded mother who had sacrificed everything to bring her daughter in the world.

 

“Please, please, protect her,” the new mother whispered in prayer, not really knowing to whom she was praying, but desperate to get the plea heard by someone.  By anyone.

 

While she bundled her daughter in her jacket, feeling her own movements were weak and fading, she noticed a strange birthmark forming on the beautiful girl’s right shoulder right before her very eyes.  It was strangely white against the already alabaster skin the newborn had, and it was the shape of it that was unusual.

 

“Fat little dove,” her mother remarked as she felt the dull pain and ache of her body telling her something was wrong.  She sighed and looked to make sure the white flag she had put in the window had held against the winds so far, hoping that first responders would see it and come to her rescue in time to at least save her baby.  

 

Her daughter’s eyes were already a beautiful blue green that looked like what a person thought tropic waters should look like.  They were large and round even if the rest of her face was crinkled and indistinguishable from your average newborn.  And those remarkable eyes stared at her mother, and it was all calmness and warmth and time seemed to stop existing.  Her pains and aches didn’t matter anymore, just so long as she kept staring down at her beautiful daughter.

 

She didn’t know at the time, but it had been another six hours until the firemen managed to open up the backdoor of her wrecked car.  His eyes opened wide at the sight of the young woman weakly holding on to a newborn.

 

“Hold on, miss, help is on the way,” he promised.

 

“No,” the new mother blinked and kissed her baby’s head in a wordless farewell.  “Her name is Darcy...please, please protect her.”

 

* * *

 

 

The fireman who rescued little Darcy out of the car was Michael Lewis, and it took four whole months until the state named him her legal foster parent.  It took another four years to allow him and his life partner Daniel to adopt the little girl.  

 

Darcy Lewis was sunshine and light and innocence and joy in their lives.  Daniel called her his little angel, because the moment she came to live with them when she was four months old, he had felt better after eight long months of harsh chemotherapy.  When Darcy was five months old, his doctor had declared him in remission.

 

Darcy’s childhood was vastly different from the one she would have had with her mother.  It was still full of love and warmth and happiness, but there was no paycheck to paycheck living, and no worried, hardworking mother.  Her fathers worked hard, they just had the luxury of money, meaning that Darcy never wanted for anything.  

 

She had the gift of picking and choosing what she wanted to do at a very young age, trying gymnastics and ballet and piano lessons and soccer teams.  Whatever she wanted to do, she was allowed to do.  Above all things, she found that she liked the piano the most, and her adoptive fathers found out she was quite good at it at a very young age.  At her first recital at the age of seven, playing a very impressive F ür Elise, the audience had been captivating by the cherubic little girl.  

 

“She’s got some kind of gift,” the piano instructor advised her fathers.

 

“That she does,” Michael agreed.  “She’s our little gift from above.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Darcy was twelve years old, she went away from the large suburban victorian that she and her fathers called home, going to New York City for a piano summer camp.  She learned a lot that summer, and found that the natural sort of grace she had while playing the piano was only complimented by the advanced skills she was developing.

 

She was excited about the recital in a week’s time at the end of the summer, which was why it was weird to see her Daddy Michael standing in the little lobby of the small dorm she had been staying in, his baseball cap crumpled in his hands, his eyes looking red and puffy.

 

“Daddy?” Darcy blinked at him curiously.  “Where’s Pop?”

 

Michael broke down in tears that had seemed to have fallen non-stop over the past six weeks.  Daniel’s cancer had been rediscovered five days after Darcy had gone off to her summer camp.  It had been so ridiculously fast moving that the doctor’s were at a loss on what to do.  It was quickly realized that the only thing they could do was make the ill man as comfortable as they could.  

 

They had thought they had enough time to let Darcy have one last happy summer.  Daniel thought he could hold out the week until she was home again to say goodbye.

 

They weren’t granted that luxury.  

 

Darcy never played piano again after that.

 

* * *

 

 

When Darcy turned eighteen, her first boyfriend in college had been a tall, lean soccer player, who constantly got hurt at every practice, game, or even something as simple as grabbing a shower in the locker room.  But he’d come back to the dorm where they lived and seek Darcy out, finding her in the common room or in her room.  He’d curl himself around the small, curvy brunette, who still had the cherubic and rounded cheeks of her childhood, and no matter what sprain, strain or bruise he had attained that day, suddenly, he felt a lot better with his girlfriend on hand.

 

“I like this mark,” he said softly, pressing his lips to the white birthmark on Darcy’s shoulder.  “Makes me feel--- _ safe _ .  Is that weird?  That seems weird.  Nevermind.  I didn’t say that.”

 

“Dude, relax,” Darcy snorted.  “You were just---you know, doing that thing with your tongue that was a lot of fun and we should do that again sometime really soon.  I think it’s safe to say that I don’t care about weird things you say anymore.  Weird it up, man.”

 

“You’re an angel,” came the sigh.  “Like an angel of mercy or something.  I always feel so good when I’m with you.”

 

“And that, you nerd,  is because I’m  _ awesome _ .”

 

* * *

 

 

It wasn’t because she was awesome.  And she wouldn’t be able to realize what she actually was until a few years later, when she was a super senior on the verge of being a super DUPER senior, trying to decide on what to do for her dreaded physical science credits, and found herself in a New Mexico standing over a man who claimed he was a demi-god, who Jane had just hit with the RV  _ again _ .  

 

They got Thor back in the RV and Darcy went to take the wheel when the ailing, giant blond piece of hunky hunky beef reached out for her.

 

“Wait, healer, come close,” Thor demanded, a little subdued but still grabbing her hand in his. 

 

“Uhmmmmmmm?” Darcy blinked.  

 

Thor blinked back at her, but was quickly on the mend as Erik and Jane went to the front of the car, eager to get away from the hospital before they could all be caught. Thor was now able to sit upright, astonishingly enough.  

 

“Are you even human, right now?” Darcy wondered.

 

Thor gave her a rueful shake of his head, “Aye, I am, little one, the question is, what are you?”

 

“Excuse me?” Darcy was absolutely confused by the riddles the giant, perfect adonis was speaking in.  

 

“The Caladrius,” Thor remarked.  “You are marked with the sign of it.  My people have not encountered it in quite a long time.  It is quite nice, however, to have you working on my side for once and not the Britons.”

 

“I think we hit your head a little too hard.  I’m just an ordinary girl,” Darcy insisted.  “Everything about me is pretty NOT extraordinary.”

 

Thor gave her a knowing and almost bashful smile and gestured to himself, and Darcy usually didn’t go for blonds, but  _ damn _ .  “You would be surprised what an ordinary appearance can hide.”

 

* * *

 

 

Thor and all of his friends referred to her as the  _ fat little dove _ during their brief stay in Ye Olde Midgard.  Darcy would have been offended, but it was said with such reverence, that she couldn’t be bothered with hurt feelings.  And the mark on her shoulder  _ was _ a little fat dove.  She didn’t understand how they knew about it, since she kept the mark well covered.  But she was beginning to think, right about the time that Thor got all armored up and whatnot, that maybe the extraordinary was a thing of possibility.

 

She researched while SHIELD kept them detained in New Mexico.  

 

The Caladrius, based in Roman mythology.  It could diagnose sickness.  And it could take a person’s illness away, healing them.

 

She thought about her life, right from her first moments.  The paramedics had told her father that her mother should have died much earlier with the amount of hemorrhaging she had experienced, but she had stubbornly held on until Darcy was put into the hands of the man who would become her father.  

 

She had graduated high school with an astonishing number of people who had attained perfect attendance for years and years.  

 

And then her Pop, Daniel.  He’d been well for years until Darcy had gone away for the summer.  It broke her heart to think that her absence had allowed her father’s illness to return and claim him.  

 

She realized in the span of a few hours just how responsible she had to be with these crazy super powers she had, if indeed they were true superpowers.  She wanted to go out and heal the world, but if she couldn’t stay close, it would just be false hope for the person who was ill.  

 

“Calm down, crazy,” Darcy advised herself in a whisper.  “You don’t even know if it’s true or not.”

 

She needed a way to confirm it.  She looked around at the suited up, super shady sort of Men-in-Black dumped boxes here and there.  There was really only one way to find out.  She walked up carefully, as silent as she could be, to a rugged looking blonde man, who seemed to be taking extra special enjoyment at slamming boxes onto the ground.  He was a pissy little thing, looking like he had just been scolded and now was petulantly completing his punishment.  

 

Darcy did the only thing she could think of that didn’t involve stabbing him.  She dropped a box on his head.  A box full of a lot of heavy, metal instruments that Jane had fashioned out of industrial strength plumbing equipment.  

 

“SON OF A BITCH!” the man roared out, clutching his hand on the top of his head where there was sure to be a goose egg knot forming.  He turned and glared at Darcy, who seemed appropriately contrite at her actions.  “What the hell, butterfingers? Did your boobs get in the way of lifting a box?”

 

With that said, the second box of pipes was a lot easier to drop on his head, and the SHIELD agent went sprawling on the ground in blissful unconsciousness.  And if Darcy banged the dude’s knees against a very sturdy piece of furniture (or two) while getting him to a couch, well, he would be none the wiser for it, because he was peacefully sleeping.

 

She put her hands into thick blond hair and rubbed against the bump, her breaths coming a little quicker as the goose egg did shrink in size at her touch.  It wasn’t ten minutes before steely gray eyes opened in confusion, but not pain.

 

“No offense, Boobs, you’re pretty as a picture,” the SHIELD agent admitted.  “But you’re about fifteen years too young for me, and I’m kind of married.”

 

“Sorry, I was testing something out,” Darcy admitted.  “Do you feel concussed?”

 

“Nope, and I would know, I’ve been concussed a few hundred times,” he admitted as he sat up.  He held out a hand and said, “Clint Barton.”

 

“Darcy Lewis,” she nodded.

 

“How’d you do what you did?  I should be drooling still and be in a hell of a lot of pain.  You a mutant?” Clint wondered.

 

“No, I don’t think so, it’s just an odd sort of thing, that I do,” Darcy sighed.  She shook her head and said, “I have to go and figure a few things out.  Can you---can you not tell your boss about this?”

 

“You have my word,” Clint promised, and something in the way he said it made Darcy believe in him.  “Could you do a little of that healing voodoo on my right ankle?  I had an incident with getting out of a basket three stories up a few days ago.”

 

* * *

 

 

Darcy knew that Thor might be able to help her learn more about what she was.  So she decided the best course of action was to stick close to Jane in order to get Thor back.  And in the meantime she took first aid courses, and trained as much as she could to be certified as an EMT and even managed to audit a few classes on human anatomy.  She figured that it couldn’t hurt to learn about what she was capable of, and she found the more she knew, the easier it was to actually focus her undefinable healing powers.

 

Waiting for Thor did  take a little longer than she would have liked, and Darcy suspected that if she hadn’t been right next to Jane the entire time, the scientist might have likely starved to death, or gotten herself all kinds of dead by electrocution, or maybe even managed to lose her entire freaking mind with lack of sleep.  But Darcy kept her healthy, by whatever magical powers she possessed in addition to more practical measures.  

 

Until the Aether.  Even Darcy’s secret superpowers were no match for something so powerful.  Thor told her later that while she was powerful, and was meant to ease illness and give relief to those who suffered, she had her limitations.  He’d hoped it would help her to realize she didn’t have to save everyone.

 

But once Jane was safe and reunited properly with Thor, that’s what Darcy tried to do.

 

She spent years travelling after the Dark Elves.  She would find the poor and the sick and she’d take their illnesses and make them well.  It didn’t work too well with terminal illnesses, because as soon as she was gone a few days, the illness came back.  She’d had her heart battered enough times when she realized she couldn’t get close enough to those people who kept getting sick, no matter how many times she went around them.  She tried to give these poor souls a good few days, to enjoy what they could before fate had its wicked way.

 

So she focused on the hurts she could heal permanently.  She paid a visit to Clint after the events of the Chitauri attack and helped him recover, meeting his wife and babies and Natasha.  She did everything she could for Erik after the Dark Elves, making sure he was healthy and whole again.  She focused on the poorest of places in the world, giving health when it couldn’t be bought.  Clint had brought her to the hospital bed of Captain America, where even his serum enhanced body was on the verge of giving up, and she sat there for eighteen hours before the doctors had said he would recover.

 

She traveled endlessly, finding that every once in awhile, an anonymous donor would drop money into her account, making sure she had enough to get by.  She realized it was Natasha, when the redhead would meet up with her every few months.

 

Natasha is the person that brought Captain America back into her life.  And with him came Bucky Barnes.

 

* * *

 

 

“His mind is damaged,” Natasha told Darcy, meeting with her in China, were Darcy had been working on young victims of incredibly bad air and polluted water.

 

“He’s the reason why Iron Man and Captain America broke up?” Darcy wondered as she packed her trusty backpack that had been gifted to her by Laura Barton years ago and had seen so many different places on the planet.  She had been planning on taking a few days to figure out where to go next, but when the Black Widow told her to go somewhere, then she would certainly, definitely listen.

 

“Darcy,” Natasha smiled at her indulgently.  

 

“I can help him,” Darcy nodded.  “But---doesn’t the damage that you described seem sort of--- _ permanent _ ?”

 

Natasha silently nodded, allowing her face to show hopefulness, something she didn’t often do with people, unless they were the closest of friends.

 

“So---if I were to heal his brain up, and he was normal, and I went away again, wouldn’t that mean he’d go all----grrrrrr?” Darcy wondered.

 

A small sigh from Natasha and then a nod.

 

“Okay.  Then, then I would have to be permanently around him, to keep him from being a confused murder machine,” Darcy said with characteristic bluntness.  She wrinkled her nose and thought about the magnitude of what Natasha was asking her.  “Nat, look, I know that I owe you, and I’m thankful for what you and Clint have done for me, keeping me off of SHIELD and Hydra’s radar, and making sure I can go and do---you know, what I do.  But---”

 

“Barnes can speak ten different languages  _ fluently _ , and the former Winter Soldier, with all of the harmful things taken out of his mind would make one hell of a bodyguard.  And where Barnes goes---Rogers will follow.  There won’t be anymore of you calling me up and asking me to bail you out of sticky situations,” Natasha said softly.  “I wouldn’t want you to stop what you’re doing Darcy.  Never.”

 

“Okay,” Darcy blinked, wondering if any man, even a rehabilitated former murder machine tied to her for his own health would want to meander the globe with her.  She had tried relationships before, and they never quite worked out.   She strapped the bag on her back and looked at Natasha with unmasked curiosity, “Why are you doing this, Nat?”

 

Natasha would have ignored the question coming from anyone else, but for Darcy, who was one of her favorite people on the planet, she always answered honestly.

 

“I got out.  I knew he was still there, I knew he was a real person under all that they had forced on him, and I didn’t go back to help.  I owe him a debt.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

The first time that a conscious Steve Rogers met Darcy Lewis was a cold day in March, where even the tropical Wakanda was experiencing a bit of weather that was less than ideal.  It was the day that Bucky’s new arm was attached, and two days before he was scheduled to wake up.  The brunette stood out like a sore thumb amongst the citizens of Wakanda.  She was a wanderer, and her clothing reflected that.  Amongst all the polished scientists and doctors of Wakanda, Darcy and her battered jeans, and an oversized flannel shirt that looked as if it was very nearly threadbare and knit hat stuffed over wild brown curls looked like a street urchin.  

 

Steve didn’t understand what she was doing there, actually.  She was just sitting next to a table full of complex instruments, covered in blankets, right next to Bucky’s unconscious head, just staring at the frozen man in the room that was at a frigid temperature in order to slowly bring Bucky out of stasis.  Natasha had called Steve and told him that she had a way for Bucky to be well again, to be whole again, and Steve had come running.

 

He had set up a home base, for Clint and Sam and everyone who had helped him the year prior.  But he didn’t spend that much time at the home base.  He was still a wanted man, and if he stayed with his friends and their families, he felt for certain that he would bring unwanted visitors back.  And as fond as he was of Sam and the others, it wasn’t Steve’s home.  It was a cherished place that he liked to go to briefly every few weeks, but it wasn’t his home.

 

The unconscious man lying on the table, getting the new vibranium arm attached to his body was his home and had been for decades.  

 

“Who is that?” Steve whispered as Natasha came to stand next to him.

 

“A friend,” Natasha answered.  “She has a very unique skill set.”

 

“She seems familiar,” Steve admitted, trying to place the pretty face that was staring at Bucky intently.  He would have hoped if he had met the young woman previously, he would be able to remember a name. Despite wearing clothes that made her look a little homeless, she was very pretty.  The play of the light of her skin and the dark tones of her hair and then the pink, pouting lips was something that Steve felt should be drawn.

 

“You’ve never met, officially,” Natasha revealed.  “She did the same thing for you when you were laid up after the fall of the Triskellion.  

 

“Stared at me?” Steve quirked an eyebrow.

 

“I don’t presume to know how she does it,” Natasha smiled.  “Thor can explain it, if you want a headache.   The short of it is that she’s imbued with the spirit of a mythological creature.  She can heal a person.  Just by sticking closeby.”

 

“Are you serious?” Steve blinked at her.  Natasha wouldn’t play a trick on him.  He knew her face when she was being completely honest, not the expression that had tricked countless marks in the past.  

 

“The Caladrius,” Natasha whispered.  “Look it up, and be good to her.  She’s going to have to stick close by to Barnes for---for a long long time.”

 

* * *

 

“Miss Lewis.”

 

Darcy had fallen asleep under mountains of blankets after the arm had been successfully attached.  She could sense that the surgery had been a success and she had focused her thoughts on the building of nerves and the healing of tissue, and she had gotten that tired, drained feeling that told her it was working before finally succumbing to sleep.

 

“Cold,” she whimpered out.  The room was slowly being brought up to temperature, less than a degree every few hours.  There weren’t enough blankets in Wakanda for Darcy to stay warm.

 

“I’m sorry,” Steve apologized in advance.

 

“What?” Darcy demanded before Steve pulled at the blankets covering her until she was fully exposed to the cold air in the room.  He quickly picked her up, smirking a little at the small squawk of surprise that left her lips as he took her place in her seat and held her shivering body in his lap.  He took her cold hands and put them on the bare skin of his neck and it was so warm that she let out a moan of contented pleasure.  “That’s nice.”

 

“I run a little hotter than the average person,” Steve admitted, feeling a small shiver run up and down his spine at the feeling of small, cold fingers against his skin.  He flipped the blankets back over them, and it felt very like he was a fireplace in a cold room all of a sudden.  He couldn’t help but smile when she burrowed against his warmth, making little hums that sounded like purrs as she got as much as she could.  “I figured it was the very least I could do since you’re doing so much to help my best guy here.”

 

“Hmmm,” she hummed, easily floating towards sleep again now that she was bundled and warm.  “Tell me about him.”

 

“What would you like to know?” Steve asked, finding it strangely easy to converse with this near stranger, who had already saved his life once, and was now there to save the most important person in his life.  

 

“Everything.”

 

“Bucky and I met when I was eight and he was nine, and I’d just gotten my nose busted open because some complete asshole was harassing the nice lady who worked the front counter at the local bakery,” Steve began.  “He saved my bacon that day, and then he spent the next fifteen years repeating that….”

 

* * *

 

When Bucky woke, it felt more like waking up on a lazy Sunday morning where he and Steve had purposefully and gleefully decided to skip out on church services.  It was warm, and there was the smell of Steve’s aftershave, and the feeling of calloused fingers gripping his right hand.  It was just like an ordinary Sunday in 1941.  

 

Except there was something else.  The smell of sweetened vanilla, like a dame that had spent all day making up a cake.  And there was also the  small snoring sound, decidedly feminine.    That was new.  Try as he might back in 1941, he had never been able to find a dame to spend the night with he and Steve.  Sure, they’d come back to his place and the three of them had had their fun together, but she’d never stayed.  And frankly, Bucky had been glad.

  
They’d never found the girl that they had wanted to stay for longer than a few fun filled hours.

 

“Sounds like a tiny little buzzsaw in Howie’s shop,” Bucky mumbled as he blinked his eyes open.  He felt the calloused fingers tighten on his hand and smiled at the sight of a softly smiling Steve  sitting next to his bedside, with the tiny little buzzsaw bundled up in a blanket and laying against his chest.  Bucky angled his head to get a better look, but the girl had her face buried against Steve’s chest and all he could see was a bunch of thick brown curls that looked soft to the touch.  “That ain’t Carter.”

 

“Didn’t work out,” Steve said dryly.  “And you damn well know it.”

 

“How long was I out?” Bucky whispered.

 

“Ten months,” Steve answered.  

 

“You got a gal on your own in ten months?” Bucky gave him an incredulous look.  “Will wonders never cease?”

 

“Smartass,” Steve grinned, thrilled down to his core at the reappearance of Bucky’s gently insolent and mischievous nature.  It had been so long.  “This is Darcy.”

 

“Buzzsaw,” Bucky nodded.  “What’s the story, morning glory?”

 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Steve admitted, shifting Darcy in his arms a little.  They’d spent the last two days at Bucky’s bedside, with only the smallest of bathroom breaks as Darcy worked as hard as she could at fixing broken pathways in Bucky’s mind.  “We both owe this little dove, everything.”

 

“Little dove?” Bucky blinked curiously, sitting up in his bed a little straighter, getting just a glimpse of a long, straight nose that promised to be fun to kiss.  

 

“Barton says that’s what the Asgardians call her,” Steve nodded.  “She heals people.  She healed you.”

 

“Huh,” Bucky nodded, knowing it was true.  

 

He could feel it in every fiber of his being without even looking down at the new left arm, he knew it was there.  He felt it.  It was a part of him like the old arm had never been.  He could feel everything.  He could remember what he and Steve used to cobble together to eat when times were extra hard, stale bread boiled in salted water and then baked up with an egg or two.  He could remember what his baby sister had sounded like when she picked at him all through puberty.  He could remember the bad moments and the good moments and he could remember the triggers, each every one planted in his brain.  And somehow, he knew that they wouldn’t work anymore.  

 

“Holy cow,” Bucky whispered.

 

“Yeah,” Steve nodded.  

 

Darcy snored a little louder in response to the soft, low pitched voices invading her peaceful sleep.  

 

Bucky smirked and took special note of the lovely little smile on Steve’s face as he stared down at the girl.  He shrugged and said, “I’m not calling her little Dove, I’m calling her little Buzz.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky didn’t ask questions when Darcy never seemed to stray too far from him.  He wasn’t complaining.  The dame was feisty and had a foul mouth and a heart the size of Texas in a beautifully curvy body.  Natasha had finally explained it to him when Darcy had yelled at him something fierce when he wandered out to the beach early one morning without her.  He’d accused her of being clingy and loving him more than she loved Steve, who she had sent away easily the night before to get fake passports for all three of them.  

 

She’d called him a monumental donkey’s ass in response and Bucky had been downright charmed by it.

 

Bucky realized that for once in his very long life, that things were lining up nicely, with very little effort on his part.   He had his health and his autonomy and his memories.  He had his Stevie.  And they both had Darcy.  It had been three weeks since Darcy had arrived in Wakanda, and Bucky knew his lover well enough to know that Steve was falling head over heels in love with Darcy.  Bucky knew because he was in the same boat.

 

Natasha had smacked Bucky upside the head when he’d told her, but eventually conceded that although it seemed fast, it made sense.  Darcy was  _ healing _ both super soldiers with her proximity.  They were in a place where their collective PTSD, depression, anxiety and other seemingly insurmountable mental issues were healed and mended by Darcy’s proximity.  Just by being close, just by being herself, she was giving them unlimited happiness that they had no hope of achieving without her.

 

It was natural to develop cherished feelings for the beautiful, kind woman who was willing to shackle herself to Bucky forever in order to keep him healthy.

 

“Just don’t do that thing that millions of baby boomers did after World War Two,” Natasha rolled his eyes.  

 

“What’s that?” Bucky blinked as Darcy and Steve worked in the little kitchenette, laughing and chattering as they assembled snacks for the upcoming trip that Natasha had arranged for the trio, heading towards an impoverished village somewhere in Europe that was suffering from the worst influenza outbreak since the twentieth century.    He shrugged at a disbelieving Natasha impishly, “I missed a whole decade after the war.”

 

“They’re called the baby boomers for a reason,” Natasha said dryly.

 

“Oh, no, that’s not gonna happen anytime soon,” Bucky shook his head.  “I want to go on a big adventure with my best guy and the sweetest dame in the world.  That should hold us over for a decade or so.”

 

“Hmm,” Natasha smiled.  “Then I only ask that you are good to her, and make sure that you care for her for more than what she is doing for you.”

 

“I will, Red.  Don’t you worry, we both will.”

 

* * *

 

Darcy realized that she wanted to spend the rest of her life going out and doing good work with Steve and Bucky, the wandering super soldiers, her fellow nomads, when they were first attacked by a new offshoot of Hydra.  They had been in an abandoned old building in South America, stuffed to the gills of sick people that Darcy had been trying to make well, and Bucky had handed her a stun gun provided by Natasha and Steve had told her to stay as close as she could to them as they made sure the people she was trying to make well were safe.

 

They didn’t try to hide her away.

 

They didn’t pick her up and run away, abandoning her hard work, the work she had decided should be her life’s work in order to protect Bucky’s future mental health.

 

They had armed her, and they had trusted her to defend herself while they defended others.

 

She was an equal there.  

 

Sure, the two men had known each other since they were children, and had developed a romance that had spanned decades and continents.  But in the few months where they had travelled together, the two of them adapting to Darcy’s lifestyle and life’s mission, Darcy had never felt like an outsider.

 

And her feelings had been slowly ramping away from strictly platonic friendship with each passing day for both of them.  Steve, who would slyly ask her every day to help him with his workouts, which mainly involved him using her as additional weight for pushups, for running, for pull ups.  He’d read whatever she handed them, then brew her a cup of tea as they talked about everything in the books.  He was quick to tuck her under his arm whenever the temperature strayed south of seventy degrees fahrenheit.  He always wanted to talk to her, asking her opinion and sharing his own.

 

Bucky was almost cat-like in his affection for her, curling up and putting his head in her lap as she chatted with Steve.  He would hand her the ipod she had purchased for him shortly after Wakanda every morning and giving her a little anticipatory smile as she organized playlists for him every day.  Where she and Steve communicated with non-stop words, Bucky could converse with her solely with facial expressions, it came in handy when they had to be quiet in any potentially dangerous situations.

 

“What’s the deal here?” Clint had asked her when they had stopped by the home base for a quick five day break.  Sam had called them back to explain that Tony had given him the shield.  Steve had hugged Sam and declared that there couldn’t be a better Captain America.  

 

After that emotional hurdle, it was a vacation of sorts for the travelers, and they were filling their time with comforts and companionship they couldn’t get with just a phone call.  Her boys were sampling all of the homecoming treats that Laura Barton had pulled together for them.   Clint eyed them with a blank face and asked in a small, serious voice, “Do I need to be doing any shovel talks, little Dove?”

 

“Nope,” Darcy said decidedly.

 

“C’mon, I need more than  _ that _ ,” Clint whined, all seriousness immediately gone.  “Laura wants details.  Let me be the provider for once, Darce.  Give me the details so that I can give them to my gossipy wife.”

 

“I don’t know what to give you,” Darcy shrugged.  

 

“The two of them are together,” Clint prompted.

  
“Yes?” Darcy wrinkled her nose in thought.

 

“Where do you fit?” Clint sighed, knowing that this gossip gathering session would probably be just as bad as interrogating a suspected bad guy.   Darcy was a cagey lady when she wanted to be.

 

“Usually in the middle,” Darcy nodded.  When Clint’s milk went through his nose at his snort of laughter she looked up and shared a look with Bucky, letting him wordlessly know that she was just trolling Clint for fun.  “Barton, you know that most places we go to don’t have extra rooms or beds for us.  Half of the time the three of us are in a tent.”

 

“Hippies,” Clint rolled his eyes.  

 

“Free love,” Darcy said dreamily just as Clint went to take another sip of milk, causing him to snort with laughter again.  “Look, I’ll be straight with you, and this is only because I already talked to Natasha about it, so you’re not getting the gossip first.  I love them.   And we’re good.  And it’s a lot easier than I thought it would ever be.”

 

“Little dove magic,” Clint suggested sagely.

 

“Maybe,” Darcy shrugged.  “And if so, who cares?  That’s  _ me _ .  That’s a part of me.  And if they love me for it, then….well, that’s  _ good _ .  Great, even.”

 

“Darce, c’mere, you gotta try this toffee,” Steve called out to her.  “Best thing I ever ate.”

 

Clint watched with a little half smile as Darcy scampered off, finding her place under Bucky’s arm as Steve handed her little bits of treats to sample as he talked her ear off.  Magic or no, the three of them looked really happy.  Complete and whole and happy.  

 

* * *

 

 

Darcy wasn’t lying to Clint.  When they were in more rough terrain the three of them did cram themselves into a tent and she did sleep in the middle, stealing warmth from both men greedily.   Ten months after Bucky had woken up, they were all crammed into the nearly indestructible tent in the wilds of Montana, offering health support to protesters who were facing cold temperatures and tear gas.  

 

Steve and Bucky had taken a lot of first aid classes in the past few months, so that they could be of assistance to Darcy, who just had to be close to make the ills of people lessen.  They had spent a very exhausting night  tending to various wounds and had trudged back to the tent, even the super soldiers were entirely wiped out.  

 

Dawn had long passed when Darcy began to stir to the sounds of quiet voices talking around her head, which was against Steve’s chest as Bucky spooned her back.  

 

“Little Buzz, you awake?” Bucky asked knowingly.  He knew she was awake when the near constant snoring faltered a bit and her body flinched into alertness.  

 

“No,” she mumbled against Steve’s chest, feeling bare skin under her lips.  She wondered when he had taken off his shirt, and realized it must have been shortly before climbing into the tent, thanks to it being covered in the remnants of tear gas. She felt delightfully scratchy stubble against her own bare shoulder and realized that one of them must have taken off her own filthy shirt shortly after she had passed out.  

 

“I like this here mark you have,” Bucky mumbled against her skin, lips pressing reverently against the mark of the fat little dove that Darcy had carried her whole life.   He reached for Steve’s hand, which had been laying over Darcy’s body, lying on Bucky’s hip.  He brushed Steve’s fingers against Darcy’s birth mark and said, “It’s a white dove, right here.”

 

“Hmmm,” Steve nodded.  “Little Dove.”

 

“This is warmer without clothes, science be damned,” Darcy barely stretched in her place, finding it difficult when she was caged in by muscular arms and bodies.  

 

“We can do this again with even less clothes, if you’re so inclined, doll,” Bucky flirted.

 

Darcy wriggled and managed to turn in their embrace, lifting her eyes to look up at Bucky and say very seriously, “What if I say I’m inclined?”

  
“Darce,” Steve whispered out, his lips landing against the white birthmark he could now see.  “Don’t joke, these two old hearts couldn’t take it.”

 

“Not joking,” Darcy blinked up at Bucky.  “Totally serious.’

 

The tent was deadly silent, but Steve moved slightly so that he plastered himself to every square inch of her back and Bucky looked down at her with questions in his eyes.

 

“I’m in love with the both of you,” Darcy whispered, turning her head to look Steve in the eye as well.     
“Kind of thought you might feel the same.”

 

“Course we do,” Steve murmured back at her before placing another kiss against her mark, then letting his lips trail upwards until they hit her neck.  

 

Darcy turned her head to look at Bucky again and smiled softly at the soft, happy tears in his eyes.  He was getting every good thing and feeling that he had ever wanted, and he didn’t have the words to say what that meant.  But since it was Darcy looking back at him, he didn’t need the words, she could read it plain as day on his face.

 

“Gonna kiss me, or what?” Darcy smiled.

 

“Yeah, m’gonna kiss you,” Bucky nodded slightly, his arms sandwiching Darcy, his hands resting on the small of Steve’s back as he pulled so that both Steve and Darcy got impossibly closer.  “Never gonna stop either, little Buzz.  Gotta keep you close forever for that.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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